


Big Man on Campus

by undersail2013



Category: Supernatural
Genre: College, Human Castiel, Human Dean, M/M, Pre-Slash, sam is bi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 04:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1674035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undersail2013/pseuds/undersail2013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College is for soul-searching, and Sam has perspective that Dean would never expect...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Man on Campus

_They're so obvious,_ Sam thinks, fondly watching his brother and the former angel poring over the atlas to find the best route to Monroe County, hip to hip, foreheads near enough to touch. The amount of love Sam sees pass between them, in every possible way though always unspoken. In the way Dean fusses over Cas, feeds him up, keeps him in clean clothes. In the way Cas follows Dean everywhere like a puppy, desperate to emulate, desperate to learn. 

Sam understood Dean's hesitance before, the reluctance to engage in a relationship with a celestial being. A different _species_ , for crying out loud. Sam could relate to the very real fear of loving something like Castiel, angel of the lord, the very essence of power, a Leyden jar in the shape of a man...

Hmmm.

Maybe that's it, though.

Cas is a man.

Sam almost slaps his forehead in surprise.

Cas is a man. Of course.

Dean hadn’t gone to college, had never had the leisure nor the freedom for searching his soul to understand the sort of love he truly wanted.

He hadn't had a Jonathan to kiss him drunkenly (and not very well) in the chapter room during a fraternity party. 

He hadn't accidentally gone on a date to see the new Christian Bale with the guy (what was his name?) from Satellite Beach, and only discovered it was a date afterward, when the guy had stood on his tiptoes at the door and stretched up high to lay a soft peck on his lips.

He hadn't let Shannon kiss him over flash cards, hold his hand after Latin class, bring him soup that time he got the flu. Maybe he’d never fallen in love and asked to discover what it would be like to be with another man, and maybe he’d never suffered and pined through a break-up that wouldn't stop hurting no matter how hard he pushed himself at the gym. A breakup that only really stopped hurting when he found himself falling instead for the cute girl with bouncy blond hair.

And now, pushing middle age, Dean doesn't know how to ask for what he wants from Cas, because neither of them ever had the luxury of being a kid. 

Sam catches his brother smiling over Cas’ bowed head. Silently, he turns from the room. Maybe later he’ll talk to Dean. Not now, though. If that quiet hand on Cas’s shoulder will ever be more, Dean needs privacy.


End file.
